Examining Pointer Authentication on the iPhone XS
googleprojectzero.blogspot.com
Examining Pointer Authentication on the iPhone XS
1–10 of 18 posts
Re: Examining Pointer Authentication on the iPhone XS
#2So Apple publishes some kernel source code under a license that basically only permits you to look at it, presumably for security researchers. Apple then also redacts security related code from the published code, going so far as to partially redact functions, only making them appear complete. Weaknesses are then found, of course, in code they redacted.
Feeling a bit schizophrenic here.
Re: Examining Pointer Authentication on the iPhone XS
#3So Apple publishes some kernel source code under a license that basically only permits you to look at it, presumably for security researchers. Apple then also redacts security related code from the published code, going so far as to partially redact functions, only making them appear complete. Weaknesses are then found, of course, in code they redacted. Feeling a bit schizophrenic here.
I didn’t see the article say anything about redacting code? The XNU kernel (used in macOS and iOS) is open-source and has been for some time:
https://github.com/apple/darwin-xnu
My reading of the article was that Apple has some custom logic in the A12 (for the implementation of the pointer authentication extensions) and have made some (unreleased) modifications to the XNU code to utilize that custom logic. The article is the author reverse-engineering the unreleased modifications and working out how they interact with the A12, to try to discover exploitable weaknesses in the implementation.
Re: Examining Pointer Authentication on the iPhone XS
#4Good work. So now you know. Open source it all.
Re: Examining Pointer Authentication on the iPhone XS
#5I love project zeros write-ups, but I wish they published more about Android.
Re: Examining Pointer Authentication on the iPhone XS
#6I love project zeros write-ups, but I wish they published more about Android.
I remember seeing more Google product related articles on their blog up until a couple of years ago. Then they stopped or slowed down, or at least they seem to concentrate a lot more on Apple and Microsoft. I guess some bugs are disclosed internally and fixed before they go public and some may not warrant blog posts.
I am sure they're working on finding bugs in Google code but just like any other company they're not going to shoot themselves in the foot by advertising these internal findings more than needed.
Re: Examining Pointer Authentication on the iPhone XS
#7So Apple publishes some kernel source code under a license that basically only permits you to look at it, presumably for security researchers. Apple then also redacts security related code from the published code, going so far as to partially redact functions, only making them appear complete. Weaknesses are then found, of course, in code they redacted. Feeling a bit schizophrenic here.
xnu is licensed under a combination of the APSLv2 and BSD licenses, both of which are OSI- and FSF-approved open source/free software licenses. Perhaps you’re thinking of the corecrypto source code release from a while back, which was indeed “under a license that basically only permits you to look at it”? That’s unrelated, though.
Re: Examining Pointer Authentication on the iPhone XS
#8I love project zeros write-ups, but I wish they published more about Android.
I remember seeing more Google product related articles on their blog up until a couple of years ago. Then they stopped or slowed down, or at least they seem to concentrate a lot more on Apple and Microsoft. I guess some bugs are disclosed internally and fixed before they go public and some may not warrant blog posts. I am sure they're working on finding bugs in Google code but just like any other company they're not…
Just to take a look I opened the Project Zero main blog page and the newest article was on a bug in https://github.com/google/skia/ so I'm not sure I can take your comment with any ounce of credibility.
Re: Examining Pointer Authentication on the iPhone XS
#9I love project zeros write-ups, but I wish they published more about Android.
The most recent post is a pretty fantastic one about exploiting polygon convexity in skia.
https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-curious-c...
Re: Examining Pointer Authentication on the iPhone XS
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember seeing more Google product related articles on their blog up until a couple of years ago. Then they stopped or slowed down, or at least they seem to concentrate a lot more on Apple and Microsoft. I guess some bugs are disclosed internally and fixed before they go public and some may not warrant blog posts. I am sure they're working on finding bugs in Google code but just like any other company they're not…
Just to take a look I opened the Project Zero main blog page and the newest article was on a bug in https://github.com/google/skia/ so I'm not sure I can take your comment with any ounce of credibility.
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